Introspection
by Aggy
Summary: Lex considers everything he's learned during his first few days in Smallville.


Title: Introspection  
Author(s): Selina a.k.a Aggy  
Fandom: Smallville  
Rating: G  
Timeframe: Sometime during Metomorphisis  
Summary: Lex considers everything he's learned during his first few days in Smallville.  
Note: This fic was written for the **oldschoolclex** challenge. My prompt was: Clark tells Lex he did hit him on the bridge and that he doesn't understand why he's still alive (in shock).  
Disclaimer: Smallville, or the characters portrayed in this fic. They're owned by DC, WB, and a bunch of other people that aren't me. But if I did own them...I would be one _very_ happy fangirl. ;)

Special thanks to my betas, Jayden, **danceswithgary** and **hils** . Any mistakes in this fic are mine, not theirs.

Remember writers crave feedback!

He'd been in Smallville for less than forty eight hours and small town life was already changing him. He'd never been one for introspection, preferring not to think too much about motives and morality. Those sorts of thoughts were bad for the soul, leading to the kind of debauchery that had goaded his father into exiling Lex to the hinterlands. Yet knowing the dangers of introspection, he still found himself sitting beside the library's hearth, nursing a glass of scotch and staring at a piece of green rock.

The rock was attached to a slender, silver chain that was so delicate it could be snapped with a wayward thought. Fragile it may be, but somehow it had held Clark Kent captive just as surely as the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles to the wooden cross.

Lex twisted the chain between his fingers, setting the stone spinning. It was tempting to destroy the thing before it could be used to hurt Clark again. He'd been spending hours thinking of ways to repay Clark for saving his life. Grinding the rock to dust would be the easiest and most beneficial.

Did Clark even realize what power the bit of dark green rock held over him?

It was one of those secrets Lex wasn't supposed to know about Clark, but destiny had decided to share a few of her mysteries with him. Clark's sensitivity to the meteorite rocks was one of those mysteries. The other was that the young man was indestructible.

There was no doubt in Lex's mind that he'd hit Clark before the Porsche flew off the bridge. Even if Clark hadn't admitted that fact after dragging him back from death, Lex would have known the truth. He had no facts to base his knowledge on, just the desperate twist of horror he'd felt as the car collided not with metal, but with flesh.

When he'd studied the ruined Porsche, he could barely believe that the car had hit anything living. Nothing alive should have been able to put a dent that size into steel.

But he knew the truth, even if Clark now denied it.

The boy had been strung out on adrenaline and terror. He'd just coaxed life back into the maniac that had almost killed him. He was too shaken, to far gone into shock, to lie. Lex knew that those first hurried words shared on the riverbank were the truth.

"_I could have sworn I hit you."_

"_You did."_

It didn't matter that when Clark had visited the Castle to return the keys to the Dodge he denied ever saying those words. Lex knew the truth. No amount of half-hearted, fearful lies could convince him otherwise.

The lies had angered him, a burning resentment that could have easily ruined the destiny that Lex so fervently believed in. Then, he had found Clark in that cornfield, lashed to a wooden cross.

Looking up at Clark, seeing that extraordinary strength nearly broken by pain and despair, Lex understood the motives behind the Kents' deception. If Clark's classmates would attempt to crucify him for the innocuous sin of being unpopular, what would the 'good' people of Smallville do if they learned the boy was almost indestructible?

Images of the townspeople waving pitchforks and torches like a mob from a black and white horror movie crowded his mind. It almost made him chuckle until he added one significant detail: Whitney Fordman armed with the meteorite necklace. Suddenly, that scenario transformed from the product of an overactive imagination to a very real possibility.

If the rabble didn't kill Clark, he'd be imprisoned in some secret lab and slowly dissected until every secret was laid bare.

The thought left him cold.

If Clark ended up in a lab, it would most likely be a LuthorCorp facility. _His _family's money funding the systematic torture of the young man that had saved Lex's life. The realization made him want to find the keys to the fastest car he owned and return to Metropolis as quickly as the laws of physics and Italian engineering would allow. Maybe then he could lose himself in the hedonistic pleasures of the club scene before he began really thinking about how many lives had been crushed in the Luthors' pursuit of wealth.

Enough alcohol. Enough drugs. Enough sex. And maybe, just maybe, he could ignore the images of Clark writhing on a steel table, the Lang girl's necklace twisted like a garrote around his throat that ravaged his mind.

His hand tightened around the rock until the facetted edges cut deeply into his palm. The urge to destroy the reminder of Clark's weakness almost overwhelmed him, but logic carefully intruded, reminding him that the necklace was too well-known that its absence would not be noticed. Lex carefully set the rock beside his abandoned tumbler of scotch.

If the necklace disappeared, Clark would bear the consequences. The jocks that strung him up in the cornfield would make sure of that. The next time they might do something far worse, something that would prove fatal or expose Clark's secrets.

The necklace had to be returned, preferably by Clark. Not only would its recovery win the admiration of the girl Clark adored, it would ensure that no one noticed his vulnerability. Lex just had to think of a way to contain the meteorite's affects so that Clark could handle it.

His gaze drifted to the mantel and the intricate lead box that was carefully placed so that he could see it whenever he sat near the fire. According to legend it was made from the armor of St. George to house the uncertainties that were undermining his faith. Free of those burdens, St. George confronted the dragon, slaying the beast with only his sword and his convictions to protect him.

A box created to house the vulnerabilities of a Saint. What better protection could he offer Clark?

The next time Clark visited, Lex would give him St. George's box and the necklace. It would be the only payment he would be allowed to give his friend for saving his life, and Clark would never know how precious it truly was. Clark's naiveté would keep him from realizing that Lex was presenting him with an opportunity to disguise his differences.

He wished he could do more, but he wasn't supposed to know about, let alone acknowledge, Clark's secrets. The confession at the river never happened; somehow he had miraculously avoided hitting Clark on the bridge. If he forced the issue, the Kents would probably pack up and move as far away from Smallville as possible.

Not that Lex would blame Clark's parents for their caution, not when he knew that his earlier imaginings of torture and dissection could easily become reality. He couldn't let that happen, not to the boy that had saved his life, not to the young man that was his friend.

Clark could have his secrets and hide them behind inept lies if it kept him safe. Lex would pretend to believe every one of those untruths, because he knew that it would take more than a blessed iron to protect Clark.

There were no dragons in Smallville, at least not the type that had inhabited his childhood storybooks. But there were monsters lurking in the shadows that could destroy even an indestructible boy. And Clark didn't even realize what dangers were waiting for him. The powers that allowed him to protect the ones he loved could easily become his downfall.

Lex had seen the darkness of the world, had grown up calling one of the monsters 'Father.' He understood better than anyone what could happen to Clark if the truth was revealed. Deception would be a necessity, the shield that would protect the Kents from the monsters. Lex would have to pretend to be just as oblivious as the rest of Smallville to Clark's abilities, despite knowing such a profound truth. He would have to clothe himself in the same armor that had protected Saint George: Faith.

He'd always assumed his mother had given him the box as a gentle reminder to be good. St. George _was_ the patron Saint of Boy Scouts and she had never approved of Lionel's expectations of him. Remembering stolen moments of lullabies and bedtime stories, he couldn't resist letting whimsy overtake his thoughts. Perhaps his mother had visions of greatness for him that didn't involve board meetings and bickering with his father. If he was going to spend his days in Smallville protecting a miraculous farm boy from the monsters of the world, why not go all the way with the fantasy. Lex Luthor; slayer of dragons. What grander destiny could he hope for?


End file.
